Keaton for the win. Bale played a great Bruce Wayne, but way overdid his Batman role, growling out his lines. Keaton was a calm and cool Batman, who added that borderline insanity quirk to Bruce Wayne. No contest.

To the posters who talk about Bale's stiff dialogue as batman- I read in an interview that he purposely did this, because he wanted to show batman's rage a little more. You can see throughout begins that everytime he talks as batman, he sounds angry. Compare this to Keaton, who was much more laid back in the original batman movie. Honesly, I prefer the way Bale portrays batman; he gives a much more primitive, rageful, and frightening aura, which is how I think batman was meant to be from the start.

Keaton, people say batman begins is better but you forget tim burtons version was made in the early 90's and for its time was perfect, on top of jack nicholson taking away some comedy of the joker and making him a much more sinister and disturbing villian. Michael keaton was the first 'batman' to me growing up and always will be, but Bale did an awesome job as well.

Only flaw with Begins is that the action is heavily clipped and edited, moving in a clunky, weird and distorted way that doesn't allow you to sit back and enjoy it. The first batman, while lacking a lot of the action Begins has, had better action, with more visual appeal to the fighting and kung-fu. Begins has a better story. As for actors...its a tossup. Keaton's batman was brooding and obsessed, while Bale's was inexpierienced and reckless, looked down upon by his peers, far more self-sacrificing.

Oh and it's worth noting that this comparison is inherently skewed towards Bale, since Bale (and Batman Begins) has over 10 years of advancement in film technology to his advantage. Revamp the 1989 Batman with year 2000 technology and Keaton would knock Bale out of the stratosphere.